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Our Beekeeping Forum
for Beekeeping Advice
To start our Beekeeping Forum because so many of you have asked for general information about beekeeping I have explored the internet and found you the man who I feel can help you best.
Phil Chandler is the author of the best selling book The Barefoot Beekeeper. It is a revolutionary book about 'sustainable', chemical-free beekeeping, showing how it can be simplified and made accessible to all, including people with disabilities, as with this method there is no heavy lifting involved.
Phil also has his own website www.biobees.com.
As you can imagine Phil is inundated with questions from those who are interested in beekeeping but not really sure where to start. He is a very busy man and would not have the time to answer each question individually.
I contacted Phil recently for our new beekeeping forum to ask about some of my reader’s fears and questions concerning starting their new hobby that of beekeeping. Phil very generously agreed to an interview with me, you can enjoy reading this in full. He also has his own beekeeping forum which anyone is welcome to join.
Health Benefits of Honey
Hello Phil
You are admired by many in the world of beekeeping and very inspirational to those who are novices.
I have many requests from my readers asking questions concerning their interest in starting this fascinating hobby.
My own knowledge lies within the health benefits of honey of which I am truly passionate.
I have quite a bit of information concerning beekeeping on my website; however as you are indeed the expert, I am extremely grateful to you for agreeing to this interview. My readers will be thrilled to read it.
Phil Chandler
Thanks for the invitation and the introduction, Jan - I only hope I can live up to it! I certainly don't consider myself an 'expert', though. The more time I spend with bees, the more I realize how little I really know about them.
Health Benefits of Honey
Phil, what was it that first drew you into the wonderful world of the honey bee and beekeeping?
Phil Chandler
I have always had a strong interest in the natural world. In my twenties, I used to wander the hills of Cumbria, clutching a copy of Keble Martin's Concise British Flora, trying to learn the names of flowers and something about their habitats and medicinal properties. I became particularly interested in bees much later, while campaigning against the introduction of GM crops in the 1990s. I began to realize that there was a massive contradiction between the way the biotech corporations see the living world - simply as a source of profit - and the way it has evolved as a complex of interdependent systems that have achieved a dynamic balance over millions of years. Bayer, Monsanto and the rest behave as if they can just tweak a few genes here and there and 'feed the world', while they are in fact destroying the soil and replacing biodiversity with grain-based monocultures, and their pesticides are wiping out the very insects on which much of our fruit and vegetable crops depend for pollination.
I became exhausted by the continual frustration of battling against massive corporate entities, and decided that I would rather be an advocate for something positive, than an 'anti' campaigner. I did a lot of reading, bought a couple of second-hand hives and set out to learn everything I could about honeybees, discovering in the process that the 'modern' way of keeping bees is less than ideal. I spent a year working for a commercial beekeeper, to find out for myself how that system operates. Since then, I have been developing a more natural approach to beekeeping, sharing information with people all over the world who are working in the same general direction.
Health Benefits of Honey
Rather a lot of people are actually frightened because they fear being stung! They do know they should invest in beekeeping equipment; however the main fear is a honey bee becoming trapped inside their bee suits! Can you allay their fears in any way?
Phil Chandler
If you keep bees, you will get stung occasionally - there's no getting away from that. And it does hurt a bit - that's pretty much why bees do it! It's their way of letting you know that they would rather you didn't interfere in their lives quite so much. There are ways of approaching bees that let them know that you are not a threat to them, and my version of the top bar hive is designed to allow the beekeeper to see what is going on inside with minimal disturbance to the bees. Even so, beginners should wear a hat and veil as a minimum, and if they are nervous, a full-body suit and gloves will give them total protection. However, I think it is important to learn to live with a few stings - it's the bees' way of giving you feedback about how clumsy you are! Start with as much protection as you think you need and shed it as you gain confidence - starting with the gloves. You may always want to wear a veil, though - you need to protect your eyes, especially.
A small percentage of people are truly allergic to bee stings, and to them a sting is potentially fatal, so they probably shouldn't keep bees and they should always carry an Epipen (self-administered adrenaline injection) when there is a possibility of being stung - when gardening, for example. Anyone who thinks they may be allergic to bee venom should check with their doctor before going near a hive. Nowadays, I barely notice stings - except the first two or three of the season, perhaps - and I even regard them as having healing potential: bee venom therapy is used in many parts of the world against arthritic conditions and other ailments.
Health Benefits of Honey
What in your expert opinion is the most likely mistake a new beekeeper could make?
Phil Chandler
You have to accept that you will make mistakes. The bees' view of the world is very different to ours, and their behaviour as a 'super-organism' is radically different to our 'individual-centred' behaviour, so I would say that the biggest mistake is to think of bees in the same way you think about cats or dogs or even sheep: bees live and die for their family - their colony - individual bees are like the cells of a body working in close co-operation. As an example: the bees you see in spring and summer, gathering nectar and pollen, will not live to eat the honey they make. The fruits of their labour will become the winter food supply of their sisters and half-sisters, who will be born long after they themselves have died.
Health Benefits of Honey
Quite a few people appear to be frightened of starting this hobby because they have read so many articles recently about CCD otherwise known as the disappearing bee syndrome. I believe as you do, that chemical crop spray and pesticides are responsible for this, although scientists cannot or have not truly worked out why this phenomenon is sweeping honey bee colonies. Are you concerned about this issue and could you allay some of my reader’s fears? After all new beekeepers should be encouraged not discouraged don’t you agree?
Phil Chandler
CCD is merely a label for a range of symptoms that nobody has yet succeeded in pinning to a specific cause - probably because there is no single cause. Like the rest of the natural world, bees have suffered from our insanely toxic agricultural system, which is based on a fundamentally flawed notion: that we can treat nature as merely a food factory without suffering any consequences. We have become separated from nature to the extent that many - perhaps most - people have very little understanding of how food is produced, and even fewer understand the importance of a healthy soil and a healthy population of both insects and micro-organisms. CCD is the bees' way of telling us that they have had enough of our stupidity - and we had better listen to them. Don't let it put you off beekeeping, though. On the contrary, the bees need all the help they can get right now, from people who understand their importance to the natural world as well as to our own food security.
Health Benefits of Honey
My readers often ask me which would be the best beehive to buy. In your excellent book you recommend a "Top Bar Hive". Could you please explain why this is the preferred choice over say the Langstroth design?
Phil Chandler
The Langstroth hive was invented as a way to make beekeeping commercially profitable. It is designed to make it as easy as possible for the beekeeper to 'manage' bees in order to extract from them the maximum production of honey for the minimum amount of the beekeeper's work. This type of hive is the beekeeping equivalent of a battery chicken unit, in that it takes very little account of the natural life of bees. All its variants - including the Dadant, the British National and the new plastic Omlet hive have this basic flaw: they are designed for the benefit of beekeeper, not the bees.The top bar hive is a much simpler design, allowing the bees much more freedom in the way they build their combs and how they arrange their stores. It is a little less convenient for the beekeeper, but it is easy enough to manage with practice and has many advantages over conventional hives, particularly as no heavy lifting is required. A top bar hive can be built easily and cheaply, even by people with little woodworking skill, whereas a Langstroth-type hive requires specialized machinery and expertise to construct.
There are free top bar hive building instructions available for download on my web site. Everyone interested in learning about what we call 'natural beekeeping' is welcome to join our free web beekeeping forum.
Health Benefits of Honey
This information is wonderful Phil and from a top, famous beekeeper too. I would also like to know what health benefits of honey you have benefited from yourself and how do you use yours? Yes I know that seems a strange question but honey is so versatile isn’t it!
Phil Chandler
I love honey, although I don't manage my bees for honey production, and I don't have any personal 'honey cured me of x' stories. I strongly believe that honey is best eaten raw, unfiltered and unheated, straight from the comb, as any processing is likely to weaken it's nutritional and medicinal benefits. Virtually all commercially-produced honey is heated, filtered and blended, and there is a lot of suspiciously cheap, imported honey that I wouldn't go near. I would suggest that honey produced in your own area, by bees adapted to your local climate and flora and kept without the use of any synthetic chemicals is the best honey you can eat.
Health Benefits of Honey
In October 2009 I met Jiten Chandarana at the National Honey Show in Addlestone, England. Jiten is the managing director of Honey Care Africa. This is a charity which has taught many people the art of beekeeping in Tanzania, Africa. They produce (well their honey bees do) a very sweet tasting tropical honey which they sell and profit from. This has meant jobs for many who would otherwise be unemployed. Jiten did ask me what he should do with his Propolis as they throw theirs away because they do not know what to do with it! I told him to eat it, their very own natural antibiotics. Phil, what do you do with your Propolis?
Phil Chandler
I love propolis and use it at the first sign of any kind of infection. It is the bees' first line of defence against disease, and it works well for us, too. It's name comes from the Greek 'pro polis', meaning 'before the city', referring to its defensive properties. It is also known in some places as 'Russian penicillin', indicating its use among Eastern Europeans as a folk remedy for a range of illnesses.I would certainly suggest that Jiten looks into marketing propolis as a medicinal product, or at least using it locally in this way.
Health Benefits of Honey
The killer question, there is always a killer question isn’t there! Please Phil, if you could give just one piece of advice in my beekeeping forum to a beginner in beekeeping, what would it be?
Phil Chandler
Read widely, and think for yourself. There is an extensive literature on bees and beekeeping and a great deal of fascinating research has been done. Watch bees at work and study their behaviour. Question everything you are told by experienced beekeepers and try to feel what the bees are telling you. Watch and listen to the bees, and let them be your teachers.
Thank you so much Phil, this information you have so kindly provided our beekeeping forum is so very helpful, makes facinating reading and will also encourage many more I’m sure to take up the art of beekeeping.
Jan, You are most welcome.
End of Interview
Copyright of Phil Chandler and
http://www.health-benefits-of-honey.com
You can buy Phil’s excellent book via his website. This book is highly regarded in beekeeping forums and societies and one that Health Benefits of Honey endorses and thoroughly recommends. Please let me know how you get on.
Phil's Site www.biobees.com
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